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A spokeswoman for Gov. Katie Hobbs has resigned after Republican backlash erupted when she tweeted an image implying violence against transphobes.
On Monday, a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville left three children and three adults dead. Later that night Josselyn Berry, Hobbs’ press secretary, tweeted a gif of a woman wielding two handguns from the 1980 movie “Gloria” with the caption “Us when we see transphobes” in a Twitter conversation about transphobia from progressives.
The tweet has since been removed for violating Twitter’s guidelines.
Berry did not respond to requests for comment.
The Hobbs administration and the Republican-majority legislature have been at odds this session, chafing especially over a number of anti-LGBTQ bills unanimously supported by GOP lawmakers that Hobbs has vowed to veto.
Arizona Republicans responded with outrage to Berry’s tweet, calling the social media message reprehensible. The far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, whose members have authored a number of anti-drag measures this session, demanded her dismissal.
“Calling for violence is NEVER acceptable,” the caucus’ official account tweeted. “@GovernorHobbs Press Sec. tweeting about shooting political opponents on the same day a trans activist shoots up a school is nothing short of vile & heartless.There is no room for this in AZ. Fire @joss_berry now.”
The 28-year-old Nashville shooter was identified by local authorities as being transgender, based on information from their social media and LinkedIn account. Conservative politicians and pundits immediately seized on that news as proof that transgender people are prone to violence, despite the fact that the data overwhelmingly shows that the vast majority of gun violence has been perpetrated by cisgendered white men. There have been over 100 incidents of mass shootings in the United States this year alone, and only four perpetrators since 2009 have identified as transgender or nonbinary.
Some felt the tweet amounted to a threat against Christian values.
“Is anybody on the Arizona news media going to discuss @GovernorHobbs press Secretary @joss_berry tweeting out that she oughta shoot practicing Christians?!,” asked T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge.
On Wednesday morning, the Hobbs administration announced Berry had resigned on Tuesday night, a day after she posted the offending tweet. In a statement, Hobbs said she doesn’t condone violence in any form.
“This administration holds mutual respect at the forefront of how we engage with one another. The post by the Press Secretary is not reflective of the values of the administration,” she wrote.
Republicans celebrated the move as a win on social media.
“Good! #MissionAccomplished,” tweeted Rep. Travis Grantham, R-Gilbert.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.
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John Fetterman to return to U.S. Senate by April 17
March 29, 2023
PITTSBURGH — U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., will return to the Senate on April 17, after spending several weeks in the hospital for treatment of clinical depression, a source close to the senator confirmed to the Capital-Star on Wednesday.
Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C. in mid-February. His chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said at the time that Fetterman had experienced depression “on and off throughout his life,” but that it had grown severe in the weeks before he entered the hospital.
Fetterman, 53, suffered a stroke in May 2022, just before Pennsylvania’s primary election. He spent two nights at George Washington University Hospital in D.C. last month, after he reported feeling lightheaded. Tests at the time showed no sign of another stroke or seizures.
Earlier this month, Jentleson tweeted a photo of himself meeting with Fetterman at the hospital, adding “John is well on his way to recovery” and grateful for all the well-wishes he received. “He’s laser focused on PA & will be back soon,” Jentleson continued.
In recent weeks, Fetterman has issued several statements through his staff and joined Senate legislation, including a bill meant to prevent future train derailments such as the one last month in East Palestine, Ohio.
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and Twitter.
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Sen. Tom Carper just violated this federal transparency and conflicts-of-interest law
March 29, 2023
Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware violated a transparency and conflicts-of-interest law by disclosing one of his wife's stock trades more than a year after a federal deadline, according to a Raw Story review of congressional financial disclosure records.
Carper on Tuesday disclosed that Martha Ann Stacy sold $2,991.98 worth of stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., although the trade took place on Jan. 19, 2022.
His wife's sale of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. came shortly before Carper, as chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, advocated for Taiwan's inclusion in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., for its part, spent more than $2.8 million lobbying the federal government in 2022, according to federal records compiled by nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.
Federal lawmakers and their spouses are legally permitted to trade individual stocks. But Carper is now one among dozens of lawmakers who have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012's transparency requirement that any stock trade must be publicly disclosed within 45 days of the trade being made.
Widespread violations of this provision, coupled with lawmakers' potential conflicts between their public responsibilities and personal stock trades, have prompted some in Congress to call for an outright ban on elected officials and their families buying and selling equities.
Carper's office characterized the late disclosure as a "simple clerical error".
"Senator Carper and his wife, Martha, have always been careful to ensure that their financial investments are handled separately by a financial adviser who makes decisions and transactions independently," Carper spokesperson Katie Grasso told Raw Story. "Senator Carper supported the STOCK Act, and he fully supports ongoing conversations in Congress on how to strengthen the legislation and improve transparency and accountability for our elected officials."
Grasso added that "immediately upon being made aware of this error, Senator Carper reported the transaction to rectify the situation."
RELATED ARTICLE: Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton violated the STOCK Act with 'embarrassing' late disclosures
The senator is working with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, a bipartisan body of three Republicans and three Democrats, "so he can fully resolve this matter," she said.
The typical fine for a late stock trade disclosure of this sort is $200, per federal law. Generally, neither the House nor the Senate ethics committees release details about their findings regarding lawmakers who violate the STOCK Act, nor do they maintain a public accounting of which lawmakers have been assessed fines, and how much those fines total.
During the 117th Congress from 2021 to 2022, at least 78 members of Congress — dozens of Democrats and Republicans alike — were found to have violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions, according to a tally maintained by Insider.
Some, like Carper, were late disclosing a few thousand dollars worth of stock trades. Others were late disclosing trades that soared into the hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.
This year, Raw Story has identified two additional lawmakers — Reps. Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA) — who were late disclosing personal stock trades.
Carper, a close ally of President Joe Biden, who represents Biden's home state, is one of Congress' most active stock traders, as he and is wife have logged hundreds of individual trades during the past several years.
News organizations including the New York Times, Insider, NPR and Sludge have documented rampant financial conflicts of interests among dozens of members of Congress, such as those who bought and sold defense contractor stock while occupying positions on congressional armed services committees or otherwise voting on measures to send such companies billions of federal dollars. The executive and judicial branches are riddled with similar financial conflict issues, too, as the Wall Street Journal has reported.
A plan to enact a congressional stock-trade ban failed during the 2021-2022 congressional session after Democratic House leaders declined to bring any of several existing bills — including one floated by House leaders themselves — up for a vote.
But this year, a bipartisan group members of Congress, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), are renewing efforts to ban federal lawmakers and their spouses from trading stocks altogether. Cryptocurrency trades are also a target.
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